ML20137R953
| ML20137R953 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Browns Ferry, Sequoyah, Bellefonte, 05000000 |
| Issue date: | 02/07/1986 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8602130491 | |
| Download: ML20137R953 (90) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
/',
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION k
In the matter of:
COMMISSION MEETING Briefing on Staff Activities Regarding TVA (Public Meeting)
Docket No.
r s.
Location: Washington, D. C.
Date: Friday, February 7, 1986 Pages:
1 6602130491 860207 P
.7 PDR ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES Court Reporters
(.
1625 I St., N.W.
Suite 921 Washington, D.C.
20006 (202) 293-3950
9 1
D I SC LA I M ER 2
4 5
e 6
This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the i
l 7
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on j
S 2/07/86 in the Commission's of f i cra at 1717 H Street.
9 N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
The meeting was open to public l
10 attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been f
t 11 reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain I
12 inaccuracies.
13 The transcript is intended solely for general 14 informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is 15 not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the 16 matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript 17 do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No l
18 pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in i
1 19 any preceeding as the result of or addressed to any stafement 1.
l 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may 1
21 authori=e.
l 22 23 24 25
1 1
UNITED STATES OF-AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 BRIEFING ON STAFF ACTIVITIES REGARDING TVA 5
6 PUBLIC MEETING 7
8 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9
Room 1130
{
{
10 1717 H Street, Northwest f
i 11 Washington, D.C.
12 13 Friday, February 7, 1986 14 15 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 16 notice, at 2:05 o' clock, p.m., the Honorable NUNZIO 17 J. PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
18 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
19 NUNZIO J. PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission 20 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission 21 JAMES K. ASSELSTINE, Member of the commission 22 FREDERICK M. BERNTHAL, Member of the Commission 23 LANDO W. ZECH, JR., Member of the Commission 24 25
2 1
STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
2 S.
CHILK, Secretary to the Commission 3
M. MALSCH, General Counsel 4
V. STELLO, EDO 5
H. DENTON, NRR 6
H. THOMPSON, NRR 7
J. TAYIOR, IE 8
J. OLSHINSKI, Region II 9
B. HAYES, OI 10 11 AUDIENCE SPEAKERSt 12 L. SPESSARD 13 J. YOUNGBLOOD 14 T. NOVAK 15 D. SMITH 16 17 18 l
1 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
3 1.
' PROCEEDINGS 2
(2:05 p.m.)
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Good afternoon, ladies and 4
gentlemen.
5 This afternoon, the NRC Staff will brief the 6
Commission on the status of actions by the Staff regarding 7
TVA.
The Commission last met with Staff on January 7, 1986 to 8
discuss TVA.
After the Staff presentation today, OI and OIA will brief the Commission in a closed meeting on the status of 9
10 their investigations related to this subject.
11 The primary purpose of this afternoon's meeting is 12 for the Staff to describe the current status of its review and 13 evaluation of the TVA program.
SECY-86-1A, " Status of Staff 14 Actions Regarding TVA," discusses the Staff's concerns about 15 TVA corporate activities, as well as the actions necessary
-16 either to return plants to operation or to complete the 17 licensing process.
Copies of the Staff paper are available on 18 the table in the rear of the room.
19 The Commission recognizes that a significant amount 20 of information has.been received and is presently under Staff 21
~ review.
The commission further recognizes that TVA also has a 22 large amount of work remaining to be done.
For instance, the 23 TVA Employee Concern Program has generated over 4000 24 allegations, and these allegations are under review by TVA.
25 Although I understand TVA has recently revised the
4 1
employee concerns' program, I understand also that we have not 2
yet received a copy of that revised plan.
3 During our last meeting with TVA on January 9, TVA' 4
announced that they had contracted with Stone & Webster to 5
retain Mr. Steve White to fill the position of Manager of the 6
TVA Office of Nuclear Power, effective January 13th.
7 Also during that meeting, the NRC was advised that 8
significant revisions of the TVA corporate plan were in 9
progress and that the NRC should hold its review in abeyance 10 until the revised plan was submitted.
11 On February 18, TVA will brief the Commission on the 12 development of the revised corporate plan.
13 The topics for today's meeting with the NRC Staff, 14 which will be addressed by the senior management team which 15 the EDO established in April 1985 to' coordinate and manage 16 NRC's response to TVA's reaction to our regulatory concerns.
17 The team currently consists of Harold Denton, NRR Director and 18 Chairman; Jim Taylor, IE Director; John Olshinski, Region II,
{
19 Deputy Regional Administrator; and Ben Hayes, OI Director.
20 Also, we have with us Mr. Hugh Thompson, the 21 Director, TVA Oversight Group.
I understand that personnel 22-from Region II are listening in on the telephone.
23 Let me ask if any of my other fellow commissioners 24 have opening remarks at this time.
25 (No response.]
5 1
CEAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right.
Then let me turn 2
the meeting over to Mr. Stallo.
3 MR. STELLO:' Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
4 Let me make a few preliminary remarks and then turn 5
the briefing over to the team, who are seated here with me at 6
the table.
7 Last Friday, we sent the Commission a copy of a 8
rather substantial report that outlines the activities that we 9
have underway and identifies estimated times to complete tasks 10 and identifies people responsible for them.
And it, by 11 definition, therefore includes a variety of dates.
Those 12 dates ought not to be construed to mean in any way, shape, or 13 form that they are trying to describe the time that is 14
-required for TVA to do its job, but rather it is the time that 15 is required for us to do the job as best we know it today.
16 You also have to understand that as TVA develops 17 more information, things will change, and we are prepared to 18 make those changes and have tried to put together a PERT chart 19 to describe the critical path, and you will notice that that 20 is principally due to other issues that can arise out of the 21 Employee Concern Program.
22 I view this as a document that is a living 23 document.
We will have to change it as things change with 24 TVA, and we are prepared to do that.
25-The thrust of what I hope you got from the document
6 1
is that the NRC is not sitting back, but we are there, 2
identifying what our job is and have put together the people 3
that are needed to do those various tasks.
4 We have asked TVA -- and I asked that a copy of this 5
report be sent to them -- to look over that report and 6
identify _to us people assigned to those tasks and their Staff, 7
so that we can start to develop the working relationships and 8
make sure that.those issues are resolved.
In many instances, 9
this is done, and in several-it is not, and we hope that we 10 will'get that feedback from TVA.
11 Hopefully, also as they see other tasks that they 12 are now aware of that we are not, they will identify those to
' 13 us, so we can add those to the list of things that we have to 14 deal with.
15 I hope by having this piece of paper available now 16
-both to us and to them, that we will have a more common 17 understanding of what lies ahead.
18 One last point that I think is very important and 19 that you will get in the briefing this afternoon is that the 20 resources that we are committing to this are, in fact, 21 stkstantial.
Those resources are within the line offices 22 represented by the office directors who are here and in Region 23 II by Mr. 01shinski, and that means that we have had to get 24 resources from other activities.
We are going to describe to 25 you what that means and.what those impacts are, and you need
~7 1
to understand that this program, as you expected, is 2
substantial, and, in fact, it is.
3 So you will be getting a fairly comprehensive 4
understanding of what all that means.this afternoon as we get 5
through the. briefing, which we would at least like to get 6
through rather quickly on one pass.
I know that is difficult, 7
but I hope you give us an opportunity to just get through it 8
rather quickly, and then we are prepared to deal with any 9
questions you may have.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I think it would be 11 interesting -- it's a very imuortant point to know what the 12 resource requirements are, and I can't remember where I saw it 13
.here, but somewhere here you have number of man-hours, 14 person-hours, person-weeks, I guess, required for these 15 various things.
16 I would also like at some point your judgment on how 17 much of that is doing TVA's work for them, in the sense that 18
-- wc11, in the spirit of Gramm-Rudman, perhaps these ought to 19 be billable expenses.
This agency is diverting a substantial 20 amount of its resources, very scarce resources that should-be 21 going to normal regulatory matters right now, to do mattern 22 that another federal agency ought to be doing for itself.
23 I would just like your comments on that as we go 24 ahead here.
f 25 MR. STELLO:
Okay.
Well, let me answer it directly.
8 1
We are not doing any of TVA's work.
We are doing 2
those things that we believe that we have to do in order to 3
make a judgment that a particular technical issue is, in fact, 4
resolved.
5 Now I will' freely admit that because the issues.are 6
in front of us, that where we may have been satisfied with 7
more of an audit nature in some areas, that we are, in fact, 8
digging in deeper.
We are.
We feel that that is justified in 9
light of the circumstances.
10 But that is not doing TVA's work.
That is just 11 doing more of our work.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
You know, Vic, though, 13 Fred raises an interesting point.
Apart from whether we are 14 doing TVA's work or not, the fact is, we wouldn't be expending 15 these kinds of resources if TVA's performance had not fallen 16 and fallen substantially.
This is a much more intensive 17 effort than our normal inspection program.
18 Our inspection program is geared to recovering costs 19 on a uniform basis.
That is, we charge an inspection fee, I 20 think, as part 6e the license fees for the p) ants.
That 21 assumes an average level.
Maybe what we ought to think about 22 is a special inspection charge to recover the costs that we 23 are incurring.
24 MR. STELLO:
I think, if you would let me -- I think 25 I can answer that question.
9 1
As I understand the way we are set up, our 2
inspection activities are chargeable per the inspection-3 activities.
But-in any case, we are going to' capture the 4
amount of time that we spend in and we can leave for later to 5
how and to what extent this ought to be billed.
I don't want 6
in any way to detract from what we are doing, as to whether we 7
need to answer that question.
It can be answered later as 8
well as now, and I don't believe it's important that we deal 9
with it now.
We can deal with it later, and I don't think 10 it's of any consequence.
11 But as I recall inspection, we bill for inspection 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> on all of our inspection today; is that not right?
I 13 think it's lasser of a case in NRR, and more adjustment might 14 be needed there.
But I don't see that as a concern that I 15 need to spend very much time with now.
16 But it's a point well taken.
We are capturing the 17 time, and when we do, if that's an issue and the commission 18 wishes to pursue it, we can pursue it in whatever way you 19 would like.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Unfortunately, it doesn't 21 help us very much, because the money goes into the general 22 fund, I think.
23 MR. STELLO:
That's why I said it's not of any 24 concern to me, because it isn't going to help me with 25 resources now.
10 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
2 MR. STELLO:
Harold, with that, why don't you start?
3 MR. DENTON:
Well, the senior management team thinks 4
we have made considerable progress since we briefed you last time, as there has been a lot of effort put in to organizing 5
6 what the Staff actions are and what the resources that are 7
required to carry those actions out are and what the impacts 8
are.
9 We think we are in good shape for Sequoyah, and we 10 are working on the next two.
We are not going to go through 11 the report that you have in front of you, but we have pulled 12 out the key items that we think you need to know today, and we 13 have about twelve slides and are prepared to go into the things tbst we think are unique and that we need to. bring to 14 15 your attention.
15 So, Hugh, why don't you begin, and other members of 17 the team will cover their respective assignments.
18 MR. THOMPSON:
Thank you, Harold.
19 Could I have Slide 27 20 (Slide.]
21 As we said earlier, we will be covering a couple of 22 key areas.
I would like to identify those for right now.
23 These will be the areas of equipment qualification, employee 24 concerns, and welding, as those items relate to the sequoyah 25 review.
Those are the ones which we have spent a good deal of
11 1
effort on recently and have some progress to report back to 2
the Comm.ssio'.
i n
3 Again,. this is, in essence, the paper that you have 4
before you.
It's more or less the internal NRC management 1
5 approach to ensuring that our resources are effectively and 6
efficiently utilized as part of our review of the TVA 7
activities.
8
[ slide.]
9 I think we have covered a good bit of the 10 background.
This is our second report to the Oommission in 11 response to the Chairman's request of December 13th, and there 12 are a couple of issues that we would want to identify again.
13 One, TVA is reevaluating the status'of their t
14 ongoing efforts to address the concerns regarding restart or the licensing of their facilities.
15 16 Steve kalte sent us a letter on February 4th 17 specifically requesting that our review of any of the Volume 1 18 activities bc discontinued, and we also had some internal 19 meetings and discussions with Mr. White where he has asked 20 that detailed meetings with TVA be held in abeyance until ha 21' has had an opportunity to look at the issues, so that he can l
22 focus on the issues before they meet with the staff with 23 respect to scheduling.
And in particular, we have' postponed j
24 the meetings on Browns Ferry.
And I think you will notice in 1
25 the paper that we talked about a meeting scheduled for next 4
12 1
week on the details on Browns Ferry, and that will be 2
postponed at his request right now.
3 These are just scheduling meetings.
Our normal 4
inspection an'd auditing activities of ongoing programs will be 5
continuing, as we normally do.
6 Again, no TVA schedules have been issued.
And based 7
on the discussions I had today with TVA, it is not clear to me 8
that they will be prepared to identify specific schedules at i -
9 the February 18th meeting.
They may be, at that time, only 10 able to discuss generally.
We will not be prepared to start 11 before certain dates.
So I think we still have some 12 scheduling work to do with TVA.
13 (Slide.]
i 14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Yes, that scheduling is 15 important, so that we can dovetail our activities.
'16 MR. THOMPSON:
It is absolutely very important.
In 17 fact, where programs are progressing, where continued 18 interface with TVA on activities, such as environmental 19 qualification or other welding, for instance, programs that 20 are ongoing, we do have those activities scheduled with TVA, 21 and we do have an agreement with Steve White that if there is 22 an activity that we think is important to continue at this 23 time, that he will make arrangements for us to be able to go 24 to the site, conduct that. activity so as not to delay our i
25-review, as well as his activity.
1
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13 1
So I think we have a clear agreement in that 2
regard.
But for purposes of areas like Browns Ferry, where we are still at the beginning edge, we felt it was appropriate to 3
4 allow some more time for TVA to look at the issues before 5
them.
6 The purpose of the next three charts, rather than to 7
get into specific details, is to kind of give an overview of 8
the issues that we see before us.
These issues were based on review of the TVA responses to the Commission's 50.54(f) 9 10 letter on activities that we have identified or on particular, 11 special areas that have been identified through the Employee 12 Concern Program or through other activities which have come to 13 NRC's attention that needed response prior to restart.
14 We worked very carefully in my group with the line 15 organizations to develop these schedules and milestones that 16 are in the paper.
They have offices identified for lead 17 responsibility, individuals identified in'those offices where 18 we have those identified now, with some preliminary resource 19 estimates and preliminary schedule.
20 Again, these are important, so that we have an 21 approach laid out, have a plan, and that approach right now includes reviewing the program at an early stage, such that 22 23 when it is implemented, the Commission understands what's 24 going to be done and TVA understands any problems that we 25 have.
a 4
14 1
We provide feedback to them at a close-out or exit 2
meetings that we have onsite.
We have a procedure where we 3
promptly notify the senior management team of our preliminary 4
conclusions on that and.in a very prompt fashion notify TVA in 5
writing of any major issues that have been identified and 6
approvals, as that may be appropriate.
7 We are doing this as quickly as possible, so that
'8' there are no difficulties that are not immediately known to 9
TVA.
10 In addition, my own group is working to ensure that 11.
the programs are well meshed.
Where items can complete the 12 reviews for more than one unit at a time, those are done to 13 conserve resources, as well as to make sure items don't drop 14 through the cracks.
So that's another activity we are doing.
15 Again, I would like to reemphasize what Mr. Stallo 3
16 said, that these schedules are preliminary.
We are making no i
17 effort to get out ahead of TVA, and where TVA indicates that 18 they think that we may.be pushing them harder than they want i
19 to be, we obviously will back off as it relates to schedule 20 planning.
j.
21 We are obviously looking at what we think are 22 critical path items.
23 (Slide.]
24 This is just the PERT chart which is in the 25 Commission paper, identifying the general flowchart.
You 4
- -. -... -..... _. - _ _. _. -. _.,. _ _.. -.... = _ _.,,, -.,.. - - -. -... -.., - - -. - - - -, -., - - -
15 1
would note that there are a large number of items on there.
2 Primarily they're very -- I believe that's page El-3.
The i
3 PERT chart there clearly indicates that part of our planning 1
4 activities include briefing the commission as part of this 5
restart activity effort with the start-up of Unit-1 following 6
fairly quickly behind that activity.
7 Again, of those activities -- I think that's why we 8
didn't do too much on the briefing chart.
It's just kind of 9
schematic to show whst happens.
The dark line indicates the i
10 critical path, which happens to be the employee concerns for 11 that particular review activity, and that's one we will talk 12 about later with the line organization specifically addressing 13 that particular one.
14 MR. DENTON:
One item we don't show there is the 15 investigations that have to be completed by OI, and we are 16 working with Ben to be sure that the resources are made 17 available to 01, technical support resources, so that the 18 necessary activities that he has underway will also be 19 completed in time.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
You have the intimidation 21 and harassment ones on there; but you're talking about in 22 addition to that?
23 MR. DENTON:
Well, whatever Ben needs to be sure 24 that those are completed.
25 MR. THOMPSON:
The package we have in here, the
16 1
summary chart is not including the details on OI's schemes at 2
this time.
3 MR. DENTON:
And we thought it best to talk about 4
those activities in the next meeting.
5 MR. THOMPSON:
Could I have slide five, please?
6 (Slide.]
7 MR. THOMPSON:
Again, these are the Watts Bar 8
issues.
They are very similar in nature to the issues that 9
are before Sequoyah.
In fact, the only reason they are fewer 10 are that many of those that are before Sequoyah deal with the 1
11 conditions after licensing'in such areas'as design control, 12 and those areas tend to be reviewed, in this particular area, 13 under the licensing items.
14 One major issue obviously in the Watts Bar review is 15 the number of employee concerns is significantly higher at 16 Watts Bar, as well as the welding program is significantly 4
17 more extensive and requiring additional effort and review on 18 our part.
NRR is listed as the lead responsibility for most 19 of these technical areas because it is a licensing plant.
20 That doesn't mean we are not fully coordinating with the 21 Region and the I&E, but for the purposes of the licensing 22 document, NRR would be the lead organization for that
' :23 activity.
i 24 If I could have the Browns Ferry summary issue.
25 MR. DENTON:
Apparently there has been some 4
,,.__~.n_,
~
c 17 1
confusion over whether this review was being done in the line
.2 or by a special group.
It is probably worthwhile.to reiterate 3
what everyone has said, that review is being done in the line, 4
all activities are ried out in the normal line.
What we 5
are is a coordinating group, as Hugh has mentioned.
6 The assignment of lead responsibility doesn't really 7'
change the way the line normally works on any issue.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Incidentally, on each of these, 9
you say these are the Watts Bar issues and these are the 10 Sequoyah issues.
Those are the issues as you see them today?
11 MR. THOMPSON:
These are the issues as we see them t
12 today.
Obviously, with Watts Bar and Browns Ferry, we do not 13
- have a response to the 50.54(f) letter, which provides one of 14 the major inputs in our ability to identify -- some of our 15 issues were identified in our letter itself.
We tre expecting 16 them to respond to the issues identified as areas for poor 17 performance in the past.
.18 JKR. DENTON:
We are not ignoring Watts Bar and 19 Browns Ferry, but it is fair to say the principal activity has 20 been getting Sequoyah clearly identified.
I would expect as 21 we continue to work on the other two, we may find additional l
22 items to add to that.
23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
You know, I have to say this 24 is extraordinary to see an issue sum.2ary for a thrme unit 4
25 plant that on just a rough scan, sort of looks like the whole
18 1
plant to me.
I am having trouble finding anything that isn't 2
an issue, Harold.
3 MR. DENTON:
Let me have John Olshinski talk aLout 4
that.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
We just ought to start all 6
over for a new license or something.
7 MR. DENTON:
You will recall they did have a lot of 8
low SALP ratings and a lot of difficulties.
We have asked 9
John to be prepared to talk about the Browns Ferry list.
10 MR. OLSHINSKI:
Yes; I can talk about it.
On Browns 11 Ferry, the reason the list is longer there than on Watts Bar 12 or Sequoyah, there are a couple of reasons.
One, there were 4
13 more SALP Category 3's on Browns Ferry; there were seven, as I 14 recall, SALP Category 3's, and each of those have to be 15 addressed and they are folded in here.
16 The other thing that makes this list especially long 17 is they had a regulatory improvement program underway, in i
18 which they were going to go back and do a number of things and 19 close out on these items, those items they were already 1
20 committed to do are included in this list prior to start-up, 6
l-21 that we would be going to look to see if in fact they 22 completed those activities satisfactorily.
23 In fact, most of the Region II issues that you see 24 listed there fall into one of those two categories.
It was a i
i 25 SALP Category 3 or a major program as part of their regulatory i
19 1
. improvement program that they had underway, by order, and we 2
will go back and look to see if that was accomplished, and completely appropriately before start-up.
3
~
That's why it looks 4
like that.,
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
It looks like -- I don't see 6
a resource.
You say it is an indeterminate resource need, I 7
_ uess.
g 8
MR. DENTON:
We will get to resources in just a 3.
9 moment.
10 COMMISSIONER BER N L:
Okay.
Go ahead.
11 MR. STELLO:
Let me make'one more point along with 12 John.
A lot of these issues that you see on here cre issues 13 that they already had as activities that were underway, long 14 before we got into this TVA problem last Spring.
They are 15 long term programs, as you can see, that are listed here, that i
16 they were scheduled to do out in the future.
They are also 17 picked up here as issues.
It is more comprehensive because 18 it comes back to the laundry list of issues that they have had 19 to pick up as retrofits to the plant.
20 I think if you would see a typical list for a 4
21 typical operating plant, I'm not so sure it would be very much j
22 different as the number of issues and backlog of actions that f
23 they have pending.
If you look typically in your last book at
[
24 the number of actions pending, let's see, some of them that I 25 remember -- what was it, Brunswick, that was started, Harold, e
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20 1
that had a list of what, 42 or 43 items?
2 MR. THOMPSON:
Seventy-eight.
3 MR. STELLO:
Seventy-eight on Brunswick as an 4
example of pending action items.
For Brunswick, when Harold 5
started that, Brunswick improvement program, the list 6
numbered, I think, 78, as we are told.
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Maybe a better question to 6
ask then is which of these are the unusual issues, which of them fall outside the category that might apply to a typical 9
10 plant?
11 MR. STELID:
Clearly, the employee concerns issue, t
12 you have to identify, NSRS reports, as examples, that you 13 would have to identify, that came out of the program that was 14 started last Spring.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Fire protection; they are 16 way behind on that.
17 MR. STELLO:
I suspect *'ou have fire protection at a 18 lot of plants today, too.
I wouldn't call that unusual.
19 Those are two.
There could be others as we go through it.
I 20 don't think you should view t: tis as any way comprehensive, 21 because certainly TVA itself is not finished.
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Employee concerns and 23 allegations are something that I think we learned how to 24 handle by the truckload in the Diablo Canyon proceeding.
25 Those are people problems and the kind of thing that I think
21 1
we are pretty organized in dealing with now.
2 Environmental qualification is the~one thing that 3
comes to mind that we have talked about for a year, that 4
really involves identifiable hardware, where we know they were 5
simply way behind almost every other utility, particularly at 6
Browns Ferry.
7 Is that still the outstanding hardware item or is 8
that not the correct characterization as of today?
9 MR. STELLO:
I don't think we know, because you have 10 got to wait until TVA identifies the rest of the issues, then
-11 you look at them, you know, which one of them is --
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Based on employee concerns?
e 13 MR. STELLO:
Well, I would just simply stop -- you 14 have to wait until TVA is finished and they decide what more 15 they have got to do or want to do before I think we could 16~
really answer that question.
It would be just a guess.
17 MR. DENTON:
This is all three plants.
As I 18 understand it, the re-start of those plants has spread out 19 considerably in time.
20 MR. TAYLOR:
TVA, on the equipment qualification, 21 took their resources and their engineering talent and really 22 put it to work on Sequoyah.
They really tried to concentrate 23 it.
The problem was not as extensive.
It is a newer plant 24 and so forth.
They really tried to work that problem through, 25 which I think is understandable.
i 22 1
How big and how many change outs, we are not sure, 2
in the equipment qualification area.
3 CHAIRMAN PALIADINO:
Can I ask you a question in a 4
slightly different vein?
Here is a list of issues.
Are you 4
5 implying that all these issues that remain to be resolved 6
before re-start would be considered --
7 MR. DENTON:
The way I would characterize it is only 8
Sequoyah do we really have our arms around well enough to say 9
what needs to be done prior to re-start and after re-start.
10 These we put here to show you these are the ones we are 11 working up similar part charts on, and it is a little too 1
12 early to tell because TVA hasn't responded on either one, so 13 we don't really have their response to start with.
These are i
j 14 the issues we know we will have to address, and we will decide
'15 shortly about-these, but TVA.has asked us to put our first 16 priority on Sequoyah, and that is what we have done.
At the i
17 same time, we are beginning to compile these things which need 1C to be done on the others.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
On Sequoyah, that is 20 pretty much up in the air until Admiral White.comes back with 21 basically his view as wollt isn't it?
Aren't all those things 22 sort of on hold until he decides whether he is comfortable l
23 with the plan and it includes --
24 MR. DENTON:
Some are and some aren't.
Programs, I 25 think, like EQ, where the inspection is going ahead, where the-m.. _.,.., - _ -
23 1
program is well defined, I think it is where he hasn't defined 2
the program and he wants to be sure he focuses on it.
3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I think the answer to Joe's 4
question in part is based on what you just said a few minutes 5
ago, that you don't expect that all of these issues are show 6
stopper. issues, because you are saying if you looked at any 7
plant, you would see many such issues as issues requiring 8
resolution.
That's why I was trying to get some sense, aside 9
from what is always the big unknown, that is what might come 10 out of the employee concerns, and the resolution of those 11 concerns, what we know today as being show stopper hardware 12 issues, EQ is clearly one at this point.
13 Do we know anything beyond that?
It* sounds like the 14 answer is no.
15 MR. DENTON:
We really haven't focused, an a senior 16 management team, nearly as hard on Browns Ferry and Watts Bar, 17 so I would rather stick on Sequoyah where we do have it all 18 organized.
Maybe next month we will have a clear answer.
The 19 big thrust has been to get Sequoyah items needed prior to 20 re-start clearly defined.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Let me apply my question then, 22 strictly to Sequoyah.
Do these represent the items that need 23 to be dealt with before we could consider re-start?
24 MR. STELLO:
Let me see if I can answer that, 25 generally.
While there are issues on here, these issues have
24 1
to "be dealt with."
If the question is, does everything have 2
to be completed before start-up on Browns Ferry or any other G
3 plant, the answer is typically, if you look at plants, no.
4 We have enough that we are satisfied this is okay 5
for re-start.
There are some exceptions, like EQ, where there 6
is a specific regulation.
In order to depart from it, you 7
would have to come to the Commission, for sure.
Aside from 8
that, there are clearly going to be issues which I fully 9
expect there will be work going on.nfter start-up.
10 I suspect as a general principle, that will apply 11 for all plants. 'That is in fact the case for all plants.
We 12 are' satisfied that what needs to be done prior to the re-start 13 or for the operation of the plant when it is finished, but we 14 clearly allow work to be scheduled for the next outage and the 15 next outage.
16 My expectation is when we are finished, we will have 17 a similar situation here.
Probably, because of the 18 experience, our reaction will be to draw it somewhat tighter 19 than we might normally do.
20 MR. DENTON:
I think we would be inclined to make 21 sure that the plant is put back together right before going 22 into operation, in view of their past history, and not be 23 quite as comfortable with issues still remaining to be done as 24 we might be at a plant that has a good successful performance 35 record.
4
25 j
1 I think in general, Mr. Chairman, they will all have 2
to be considered, but the details on each one, you know, until 3
we meet with TVA and find out what is going on in each one, l
4 they will be worked out in detail, but they will all have to j
5 be considered.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I had expected that was true, 7
but I wanted to get it out on the table.
8 One other thing that may be more a question on 9
employee concerns than on other things, but one of the things 10 that I either read or talked about to somebody or heard from 11 somebody, has to do with cable pulling and the stresses that t
12 are imposed.
L l
13 Does that come under -- is that an item for 14 Sequoyah?
15 MR. TAYLOR:
That is under the employee concerns and 16 in the NSRS report area.
That is one of the items that we are 17 going to have to consider.
We talked about it in the senior 18 management group.
TVA is doing work in that area right now, 19 analysis in that general area.
It is a big, broad question.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
That's right.
That's why I say 21 employee concerns may bring about a significant additional l
22 list of important hardware problems.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
In fact, TVA is still in l
24 the process, aren't they, of looking at those thousand limbs i
25 to decide which ones are significant and which ones may affect
26 1
the other plants?
1 2
MR. THOMPSON:
If I could go on to slide seven, 3
which is some rather new information that we did not have last 4
time.
5
-(Slide.]
6 MR. THOMPSON:
Some resource estimates and summary.
7 For each of the various subelements, we went through and 8
worked with the line organizations and asked for their best estimate of the level of resources it would take to complete 9
10 the review that was identified for the sequoyah activity.
l 11 l
As you noticed, there was only one of the blocks in 12 the Sequoyah activity which dealt with just the tech spec 13 review, which is kind.of the normal activity.
These really 14 are essentially above and beyond our normally planned activity j
15 for a plant of this nature.
16 The resources, as we calculated them for the 17 technical review, was between 500 and 600 man weeks, through 18 the period of the schedule, which kihd of ran through April, 19 up to early May.
That breaks down with about 150 for both NRR 20 and I&E and about 300 for Region II, and OI, I think you have I
21 been informed, has dedicated six of their investigators full 22 time for the TVA activity.
4 23 Jin, I think you wanted to add some details on how 1
24 you see these resources being applied.
25 MR. TAYLOR:
We have tried to lay out Sequoyah in j
--~
27 1
greater depth for a couple of reasons.
One, we are trying to 2
look at the demands on Region II and the other offices and 3
the other Regions.
I would like to show you -- just back-up 4
slide three, please.
5 (Slide.)
6 MR. TAYLOR:
You have one of those in front of you.
7 What we are doing is we are taking work that we know we can 8
currently look at and evaluate at Sequoyah, and we are using a 1
scheduling process along the. lines that you see here, and the 9
1 10 numbers on the bars represent people, man weeks, and dollars 11 that we will be spending through the month of February.
12 I wanted to show you this because there is a number 13 of tasks here that we will be working on during the month of 14 February.
This is both Slide three and four.-
15 Could we have the next slide, too?
Number four, 16 please.
17 (Slide.]
18 MR. TAYLOR:
The scheduling at this level of detail 19 is necessary to see how much help we have to provide into the 20 Region, how much help we have to provide from I&E, 21 Headquarters, and the other Regions.
This is the level of 22 detail.
We are already working on the month of March for 23 Sequoyah.
Ultimately, owe are going to have to get to this
' 24 point on plants like Watts Bar and Browns Ferry.
Then I will 25 be able to integrate total resources through all the plants on 4
r-.
,,,--,--.-ve~,-
-..me-,,e----e
--- -~
m,w--,----.-,--,,---~--,,----r
,--,-e
,------+-----,cs---
28 1
mon,th by month layouts of the work'that is going to have to be 2
done.
This covers the inspection evaluation, essentially 3
field.
This is essentially field work.
4 I have one summary slide.
May I have slide five, 5
please.
6 (Slide.)
7 MR. TAYLOR:
Just during the month of February, we 8
are going to be averaging each of the remaining weeks, over 20 l
9 man weeks per week, and spending at the rate of about $25,000 10 plus per week, just to get off the ground on seme of the base 11 work at Sequoyah.
This is just the beginning, as I told you, 12 because as rapidly as work will proceed at the other plants, 13 we are going to have to super impose other schedules across 14 our resources.
We are getting help already from the other 15 Regions.
i 16 COMMISS7"NER BERNTHAL:
Let me just point out, with j
17 the disproportionate magnitude of the effort that is being 18 expanded here, you are looking at 500 to 600 man weeks, just 19 for Sequoyah.
We aren't talking Watts Bar, Browns Ferry or 20 Bellefonte yet.
That is roughly 50 to 60 people full time for 21 a year.
If we did that, for every two plants operating today, l
22 we would need 25,000 people alone, just for this kind of 23 effort in this Agency.
That sort of puts it in perspective.
24 There are two plants down there; right?
25 MR. THOMPSON:
Yes.
}t
29 1
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
You multiply those numbers 2
by 50 and you come up with'-- if I am doing the numbers right 3
-- I'm sorry.
I slipped one.
2,500 people.
You need 2,500 4
people just for the plants we have operating today, just to do 5
this kind of work.
That's essentially a little bit less than q
6 the entire number of employees in this Agency.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
. Fortunately, they are not 8
all in this shape.
9 MR. DENTON:
Well, we have Toledo Edison, Rancho 10 Seco, San Onofre I that are also eating up our resources.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Let me ask a corollary 12 question.
I know we have a lot of effort going on, but are we 13 being sure that we are not spending prematurely effort that 14 has to be redone later?
I can see planning.
I can see 15 inspection to get information.
I'm not quite clear that all 16 of the effort that needs to be put on, needs to be put on in 17 this timeframe.
18 MR. DENTON:
This estimate is to complete the 19 activities that we have shown, and until the activity rolls 20 around to be done, it won't'be expanded.
It will have to be 21 expended some time --
l 22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, this is sort of 23 misleading, when it has dates on it.
24 MR. DENTON:
Well, the dates are all subject to 25 TVA's schedules themselves.
i l
30 1
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
There are some things you would 2
do, even if TVA --
3 MR. DENTON:
Yes, that's an attempt to get ahead of 4
the game on things like EQ inspections, where we can do it.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I think this is an important 6
point, because I get the feeling that we have 50 or 60 people 7
working on it now, whereas maybe that is the feeling that we 8
ought to have, but I think some people are doing planning.
9 There are some people who are doing something else.
When they 10 are called on, they will do this piece of work.
Getting some 11 field for that would be helpful.
12 MR. STELLO:
Mr. Chairman, in a few minutes we will 13 be coming to some slides where you will be able to see'very 14 specifically activities that are under way like EQ, where the 15 work has been identified, the rework for the equipment 16 qualification is, in fact, finished and involves inspecting 17 and looking at that work, which is, in fact, ongoing and being 18 done.
It is completed work.
We know about when it is being 19 done and we are scheduling the people to do it, and it is 20 fairly accurate.
21 With respect to the other issue that was raised as 22 to taking these numbers and starting to multiply them, there 23 is a hazard in that because you recognize that we are going 24 to be going through these issues the first time, which are 25 very difficult and they are hard, but Ts we do them once, it
31 1
is still TVA, so that when we finish that issue, it isn't 2
clear to me that you need anywhere near that resource to do it 3
the second and the third and the fourth time.
When you have 4
done it once and you know how it is going to be done and it is 5
done the same way, it takes t heck of a lot less effort to do them and thern are a lot of similar issues on EQ and welding 6
7 and other things that are going to come up.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Let me make another comment.
9 With all due respect to Fred's calling attention to 10 the problem, it is a little bit like saying it took us 500 man 11 hours1.273148e-4 days <br />0.00306 hours <br />1.818783e-5 weeks <br />4.1855e-6 months <br /> to fight a fire in this tall building and we happen'to 12 have 100 tall buildings in the town, and if they are all on 13 fire at once, then we would have to put this kind of effort on 14 there and that would be more than the fire department could 15 stand.
But nevertheless, I think there is value in asking the 16 question so we get the effort in perspective.
17 MR. STELLO:
I want the Commission clearly to 18 understand that what we are doing is making sure that we get 19 the work done so we don't become critical path.
As we know 20
. the trork is identified, that is what we are doing.
We are not 21
'trying to get ahead and say here are some things and let's 22 decide how TVA ought to solve them.
We are not doing TVA's 23 work.
We are doing the work as best we understand it that we 24 know we have got to do.
25 If you give us a few minutes to get to the other
32 1
slides, you will have concrete, specific examples where you 2
can see the work.
It is done, it is a task and a 3
near-completed task, and it has been substantial work.
So if 4
you will just let us have a few minutes, we will get to it.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right.
Well, let's give it 6
a try.
7 MR. DENTON:
And we wanted to show you that the work 8
does cost, Mr. Chairman.
We always discuss where the resource 9
is coming from, so we will show you where these resources --
10 what they are going to impact based on their line 11 organization's best judgment of where we are going to get 12 them. 'They are important activities, but I think the staff 13 does feel strained with the number of activities going on that 14 what gets deferred isn't any important items.
I would like to 15 just walk through this list.
16 Hugh, do you want to summarize some of the points?
17 (Slide.]
I 18 MR. THOMPSON:
Well, I thought we would identify 19 them and maybe we would have some discussion by the line 20 organization as appropriate.
The first one, we have three EQ 21 inspections have been deferred in order to do the special 22 reviews that we have done,to date at sequoyah, and again, as 23 we will have additional reviews at Sequoyah and Watts Bar and 24 Brown's Ferry, additional EQ inspections will be again 25 deferred.
33 1
This is the case where we have decided that we 2
wanted to have clear assurance that this issue was 3
appropriately addressed and have done a more thorough review 4
and audit of the documentation.
And one of the other problems 5
we found was in the original visit we made, the documentation 6
wasn't in appropriate shape for us to do it, so we had to go 7
back again.
8 So that's a clear example of an activity that had to 9
be deferred at other plants to be able to support that 10 activity.
11 The next scheduled CAT inspection has been 12 deferred.
That was for Beaver Valley 2.
These resources are 13 now being made available.
14 Jim?
15 MR. TAYLOR:
Well, I am foreseeing that we may not 16 be able to do any further CAT inspections, certainly not this 17 year, and we did-South Texas a few months ago, and they have 18 just gotten that report out and they are doing Palo Verde.
We 19 had planned to go into Beaver Valley as our next one.
But it 20 looks like those resources that are available in headquarters 21 that can supplement, they are inspector trained plus
-22 contractor trained for inspection resources, that we are.
E 23 definitely going to have to use those in the TVA system.
24 so I foresee no way of handling this workload-25 without taking those resources and' essentially stopping that
34 1
type of inspection.
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Is that a money problem or 3
I&E staffing problem or a combination?
4 MR. TAYLOR:
It's trained people.
Just money 5
shovaled in wouldn't solve the problem alone.
We have had 6
essentially some of the contractors working with us who have 7
been with us for quite some time, so.it is a trained --
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
So scarce resources, and 9
you have to use them where -- unfortunately, Beaver Valley 10 could probably use that CAT.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
That is the point.
It is 12 hard for me to see how you can justify pulling resources from 13 other plants that are under construction to try and fix 14 something that-you know, is a problem that another Federal 15 agency 30,000 strong got itself into.
We have got a lot of 16 other utilities out there, a lot of other plants under 17 construction, and I'm not sure that it makes sense for us not 18 to do any more construction appraisals on those plants the 19 rest of the year.
20 Is. that what I just heard?
21 MR. STELLO:
No, no, no.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
No, no.
How many do~you do a 23 year, three or four?
He has already done two, he said.
He 24 has already done two.
25 MR. TAYLOR:
We just finished --
35 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
You are going to go from 2
four to two?
3 MR. TAYLOR:
Yes.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
The rest of this fiscal 5
year?
Well, let's put it this way.
When is the next time we 6
will have the resources to do another CAT?
7 MR. TAYLOR:
I don't know.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
And it is going to depend on 9
how the Commission finally comes down.
10 MR. TAYLOR:
It really depends on how much 11 inspection --
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Please let me finish the 13 sentence.
It will depend on how the Commission decides it is 14 going to distribute the funds that we have, the resources we 15 have.
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I don't doubt that, but what 17 I'm pointing out is this is the kind of problem that can 18 snowball.
These plants are already built except for -- well, 19
-sorry, Watts Bar isn't and Bellefonte, but a number of them 20 are already built.
Five units are.
There are a lot of other 21-plants building out there, and one wonders why we shouldn't be 22 seeking outside help in some of the appraisals down there.
23 I'm just not sure that --
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, the Staff is trying to 25 tell-you what it's costing.
We may not agree that we want to
36 l
1 proceed on this particular tack, but I think something has to 2
give in order to do this or we tell them don't do what they 3
are proposing.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
That's right.
5 MR. STELLO:
Yes.
But there is a very important 6
point, I think, to make, and that is we do know that these 7
plants have significant problems we have to deal with.
- Now, 8
where ought you to put your resources?
You ought to put your 9
resources where you see the significant problems exist.
10 That's what we do.
And we are, in fact, in the process -- and 11 I hope in the very near future we are going to start backing 12 off where we are spending a lot of inspection on facilities 13 that are doing very well and it is time to back off on those.
14 You should be asking the other question, why do we 15 continue to go out and inspect facilities where things are 16 going well?
We shouldn't be doing that.
That should be a
'17 benefit, quite frankly, to-the utility who is doing well so we 18 aren't out there harassing them with inspections and we can 19 clearly pull off and back off from those inspections and start 20 using some of those resources.
21 Now,'we are going to be doing that.
We have got to 22 make the judgment and bring it to you as to how best we see 23 it, but our criteria -- while I couldn't spell them all out, I 24 will take the first one.
Let's put our resources where we 25 know we have got a problem. That's what we are doing.
37 1
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, look, I don't disagree 2
with any of that.
What I am saying, the point I am trying to 3
make is that if you want to look for what I see as-a 4
regulatory breakdown around here, look at Zimmer and Midland, 5
The plants that we didn't know they had a problem until it was 6
too late.
And if we aren't going to do the kind of appraisals 7
in time to know in time that they have a serious problem, my 8
concern is that we will and up with other Zimmers and 9
Midlands.
That is just a catastrophic loss-to everybody, to 10 the general public.
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
You may have one of those 12 here, but we don't know yet.
13 MR.'DENTON:
Well, let us hit the other impacts 14 because it's not only this one.
We just wanted to show that 15 any time we divert 40 of our top people into that problem i
16 area, they come off of --
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
That is the point.
18 MR. STELLO:- You could help me to make one more 19 point, and maybe it is Criterion 2.
If there is a facility 20 and it is not being constructed well, please don't point to 21 NRC and say it's NRC's fault. It's.the utility's fault.
They 22 are responsible for constructing them right.
You can't expect 23 this staff with its resources to say we are going to stop 24 that.
We do the best we can.
But if it, in fact, is fouled 25 up, you have got to look, and the Licensee is who ought to get
38 1
the blame for it, not us.
2' COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Look.
I don't disagree with 3
that.
I don't want to lapse into regul-tory breakdown 4
language, but it's a breakdown in government and governmental 5
responsibility when somehow you have plants that are 90 or 95 6
percent completed that and up rusting in the field.
We have 7
got three-of them now.
Not to say it is all our fault, by a 8
long shot.
9
. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, I think we are getting 10 off the subject, in a sense.
We may not agree with some of
. 11 the things that they are proposing to defer in order to meet 12 the TVA requirements.
Then this will come ouu in the 13 discussion. We may also conclude after we hear it all.that 14
.maybe we want a different balance in the amount of effort we 15 put on these various activities.
16 MR. STELLO:
Mr. Chairman, I' don't want to belabor
)
17 this point, but it has hit a very strong nerve of mine, that 18 too often this Agency is always looked for as being who is 19 responsible because that valve didn't work or that pipe I
20 cracked or that steam generator is fouled up, and we always 1
21 seem to be held accountable and responsible.
We do not 22 operate, we do not construct them, we do not design it. Those-23 are not our responsibilities.
We as regulators do the best we 24 can to assure that that doesn't happen.
25 In the case of TVA, that has been done.
There
39 1
hasn't been an accident or an incident in that plant.
I don't 2
see how we can be held accountable.for what TVA did.
In fact, 3
I would say this is, in a sense, a regulatory success.
These 4
plants were --
5 CHAIRMAN BERNTHAL:. Well, you are preaching to the 6
choir.
I don't disagree with a bit of that.
7 MR. STELLO:
Well, I think it needs to be said more 8
often because we seem to always get the blame.
9 MR. THOMPSON:
Your point is well taken.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I am sympathetic to the point.
11 I believe maybe we ought to go on with seeing what we are 12 going to do to cope with this situation.
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes, we should go on.
I 14 agree.
This issue will be addressed later.
15 MR. THOMPSON:
Two more important I&E activities 16 that are being deferred at this time are two small-scale PAT inspections and initiation of the third safety system outage 17 18 modification inspection are being deferred indefinitely.
t i
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, one of the problems I 20 have with this chaet is it sounds as though they are being 21 deferred in the TVA case, or are you referring to other 22 things?
23 MR. THOMPSON:
We are referring to others, not the 24 TVA, and th.ose resources are being applied ~to support the
. 25 headquarters and the region review of the TVA activities and
40 1
inspection efforts.
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Where were the two PATS 3
going to be?
4 MR. TAYLOR:
We have not scheduled those yet.
We 5
have been doing small-scale PATS.
We did one, for example, in 6
the area of surveillance at D.C. Cook, had some significant 7
issues and findings and surveillances they weren't doing 8
properly.
But we have not scheduled.
That was part of our 9
plan for the next six months, to do that.
10 The Commission has mandated a PAT at Three Mile, and 11 we are going to do that.
That is coming up.
12 MR. THOMPSON:
The regional inspection program is 13 currently under evaluation for the activities that'may need to 14 he reevaluated and rescheduled there.
15 John, did you want to add any specifics with respect 16 to that effort?
17 MR. OLSHINKSY:'
Yes, I did want to talk about that a 18 little bit.
19' The schedule for the Region has been generally 20 impacted.
That's why you don't see specifics on the Region as 21 they impact here.
Our biggest general impact of this is our 22 engineering support activities and the briefings that have 23 been effected.
We have tried to not affect the resident 24 programs from the other sites, and so far have been successful 25 in doing that, in keeping the rartdeTt programs at the other
41 1
sites fully employed at their sites.
+
2 But our engineering support from the Region 3
typically goes out to all the plants, and of course, that is 2
4 very concentrated right now at TVA, and as a result, we.are 5
deferring some inspections, taking the schedule out longer.
6 We are going to move the schedule out on licensing actions, 7.
for instance, on licensee event reports and on event 8
follow-up.
We are doing less of that at the other sites than 9
we had done before, and mainly relying our our resident staff 10 there.
11 So that is the impact so.far.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Are you differentiating, 13 though, as Vic. suggested, in terms of performance so that you 14 are not taking emphasis away from places like Turkey Point?
15 MR. OLSHINKSY:-
Very much so.
Turkey Point is one 16 of our higher priority activities in Region 2 and will 17 continue to be.
18 MR. THOMPSON:
In NRR, some of the activities that 19 have been impacted, for instance, are project managements for 4
20 the Beaver Valley 2 project and the callaway project have been 21 reassigned to the TVA activities full t'ime, and the new 22 project manager hired to support some of the Comanche Peak 23 effort to replace one who had retired will be assigned to tha 24 TVA activities.
That means we will have less project 25 management capability for those plants in the foreseeable
42 1
future.
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Does that give you a 3
project manager, in essence, for each of the TVA units?
4
'1CR. DENTON:
At least one.
Maybe Tom Novak -- all 5
these impacts are Westinghouse --
6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Per unit, though, you 7
would you have one?
8 MR. NOVAK:
Currently we have two project managers 9
assigned to each of the three sites, Sequoyah,' Watts Bar and 10 Brown's Ferry.
And as Hugh mentioned, when we moved some 11 people, we tried to make the best choice.
Where we had a 12 Beaver Valley 1 project manager as an OL, we assigned the
'-13 Beaver Valley 2 PM to TVA and then asked the Beaver Valley 1 14 PM to pick it up.
15 But that does represent a major activity because 16 there are a lot of or a number of outstanding open items yet 17 to be resolved on Beaver Valley 2.
One example, for_ instance, 18 is the leak-before-break application on the part of Duquesne.
19 Now, this place is a special effort on the part of that single 20 person now handling both units.
j 21 In the case of Callaway, because it was a SNUPPS l
22 plant, we assigned that activity to the Wolf Creek project 23 manager.
Now, in this case things are not as difficult.and we 24 are able to carry it for a certain period of time.
25 The role of the project manager, though, is
43 1
affected.
He is not able.to be in as many places as he would 2
like to be.
3 MR. THOMPSON:
Likewise, in our technical review 4
activities, when a new item comes up before the review as 5
these are scheduled, these will impact or delay some important 6
plant specifics, and it is hard~to identify specifically which 7
ones until it comes up, but they would be, for instance, on 8
reevaluating operation and organization and management.
These 9
things are very important to a utility, but they are things 10 that don't have to be done at a specific time.
Likewise, it 11-could be operational flexibility.
The plant can operate 12 without some tech spec modifications to that.
13 And other things such as the Westinghouse standard 14 reactor design, or even some of the standard tech spec 15 activities would be impacted on that.
16 And, of course, in my cwn case I think I feel very 17 dear to the last one, selected senior staff members, not only 18
-- I think John also joins me, I believe.
There are some in 19 I&E that had been dedicated full time -- excuse me.
20 Mr. Stallo was looking at me.
4 s
a 21 MR. STELLO:
And they enjoy every minute of it.
l 22 (Laughter.]
23 MR. THOMPSON:
But these are some of the impacts 24 that have occurred, and they are real and they are ones that 25 we wanted to identify to the Commission, what is needed.
44 1
to support the effort that we have identified today.
2 MR. DENTON:
We wanted to get.it on the table, and 3
we think that is the effort required to support the Sequoyah 4
activities.
And if they are not the ones you desire, now is 5
the time to.let us know.
But they reflect each line's choice 6
'of what to do in order to do what the senior management team 7
thinks needs to be carried-out on Sequoyah.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Let me just ask a question 1
9 this way.
I am trying to get at this several different ways.
10 I am concerned at the proportionate -- the correct 11 proportion of resources to go to this particular problem.
12 Just very roughly speaking,.as the senior managers in this 13 agency, what fraction -- I know what you say about 14 person-weeks or whatever, but given all the time that you all 15 are devoting to this problem right now, if somebody asked for 16 a rough estimate of how much of your time and attention this 17 is going to demand in the next six months, what percentage, 18 what would you say?
19 MR. DENTON:
I think it has been demanding about 25 20 percent of each of our time for the last several months, I'd 21 say.
I 22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Whose time?
Yours?
23 MR. DENTON:
Maybe not counting Ben's.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Whose?
Yours?
25 MR. DENTON:
Mine and Jim's and John's.
We meet i
l
45-1 extensively at least twice a week, sometimes more often, to 2
review what the Staff has found in these areas, and I think in 3
view of the situation ~down there, it's appropriate right now.
4 But it does mean that we are giving less time to other I
' activities that are going on, and I hope it doesn't go on for 5
6 much longer, and I look forward to TVA coming out with a plan 7
that is comprehensive and looks.more like the Davis-Besse 8-approach, where they are going to take the ball and solve
~
9 these problems.
10 But in order to get movi~ng from where we were 11 previously up until now has taken this sort of management
. 12 involvement.
So I'd say it's over -- well, a day and a half 13 per week of my time directly in meetings with all the people 14 involved.
15 MR. STELLO:
I don't debate the estimate that Harold 16 has offered you as proper.
I'm probably spending about that 17 myself.
But I think each of us recognizes that we have our 18 jobs to no, and that becomes an occasion when it's above and 19
.beyond the call, and this is clearly above and beyond the 20 call, and it takes that extra effort.
As professionals, I 21 think the Staff is prepared to rat that extra effort in.
And 22 this is not unusual.
We have done this many, many times in 23 the past where we, you know -- it just isn't 40 hours4.62963e-4 days <br />0.0111 hours <br />6.613757e-5 weeks <br />1.522e-5 months <br />; it i
24 isn't eight to five, and as professionals, I think everybody 25 understands that'.
t
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I 46 1
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
.Well, that's not the point.
2 Harold has said.that this has been going on for several 3
months, and the question is, as I look at this list that 4
you've got, we've got a lot more months, unless I miss my 5
guess here.
6 And these are five plants.
We have got twenty 7
plants to license durina the next two years.
That's the 8
concern.
9 MR. STELLO:
Nine plants.
Nine.
Nine TVA plants..
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Five plants shut down.
11 MR. STELLO:
Well, altogether, though, the plants 12 that we're involved, Watts Barr is not yet operating, and 13 that's taking a considerable amount of time, too, but there 14 are nine total.
And if you look at that, that's nearly 10 15 percent of the plants that we've got, and if you wanted to say 16 that roughly it ought to take 10 percent of the agency's 17 resources, it's probably getting something in excess-of 10 18 percent of them.
' 19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
You touched on something else I I
20 was going to ask.
Percentages don't tell you the whole story, 21 because if your average work week is 60 hours6.944444e-4 days <br />0.0167 hours <br />9.920635e-5 weeks <br />2.283e-5 months <br />, and you are 22 working 80, and out of that ycu get your 20 percent, it's a 23 different answer from saying you are working a 40 or 60 hours6.944444e-4 days <br />0.0167 hours <br />9.920635e-5 weeks <br />2.283e-5 months <br /> 24 and getting your 20 percent.
25 So I think that the-dedication of the Strff is I
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47 1
something we shonid appreciate, because I know what's going 2
on.
3 MR. DENTON:
For example, in the welding area, we 4
have taken one of our best Branch Chiefs and devoted him 5
full-time to this welding issue.
So he's been pulled out of 6
his normal job and is putting in every week on this issue.
7 I think our expectation is,- once we get the criteria 8
and programs reviewed and approved that TVA is proposing, then 9
the level of management involvement-can back off, and it i
10 becomes a case of monitoring the implementation.
But it's 11 taking a lot of effort because of the unique nature of many of 12 these employee concern issues, especially to get up and make 13 sure with the criteria and what's going on.
14 It might be helpful to-go through the three examples 15 we pulled out to show you a bit how those three are going, and 16 we have specific manpower estimates in those three areas where 17
_we have a little siice of activity.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Let's do that.
But let me make 19 another comment.
20 With regard to these points that you have on the 21 slide that talks about the impact of TVA effort on the-Staff, 22 I would suggest that Commissioners look at it, and as they 23 develop reactions to it, it ought to be fed to the Commission, i
24 and I would appreciate receiving them, so that we can get~them 25 to the Staff, okay.
48 1
Do you want to go ahead?
2 MR. STELLO:
Well, let me include, though, you 3
recognize that these are the areas that we have judged to be
~4 the right things to do, based on everything that we know of, 5
so we have consciously looked and tried to make sure that we 6
did our best to minimize, to the extent that we could, the 7
impacts, and this is, indeed, our best judgment right now.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
And I was working from that 9
assumption.
But nevertheless, if there are comments to the 10 extent that we should redirect something, we should get it 11 back.
But I would like to get them so we can coordinate I
12 them.
Meanwhile, I would.suggest that the Staff go ahead on i
.13 the assumptions it has made.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Right.
I think Vic's 15 point is a good one, though.
They are the people who are 16 closest to it, and I think we have to give weight to their 17 judgment on this.
I don't think any of us are happy about at 18 least some, if not all, of those items being deferred, but 19 it's a fact of life that nothing comes free.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, that's why I say they 21 should go ahead on their assumptions.
Only if we have 22 someplace that we feel we want to add our two cents in should 23 the thing be changed.
24
[ Slide.]
i 25 MR. THOMPSON:
This is one where the Office of
49 1
Inspection and Enforcement has the-lead.
2 Jim, do you want to --
3 MR. TAYLOR:
This has been proceeding.- We've talked 4
a little bit about it before.
We're up at the point where 5
about something over 70 of the 96 packages are done.
There is 6
still some' work, minor work, in about 20 more of those 7
packages being done out in the field at Sequoyah.
And then
~
8 there are about five or six that are tied up in some of the 4
9 cable work that's going on.
10 This effort is coming together quite well for our 11 Staff.-
The Staff will be back next week, for nost of next 12 week, and then we figure a very small effort in final 13
' follow-up may be necessary sometime later in February, and 14 that's the way we scheduled it out on that bar chart I showed 15 you.
1 16' At the bottom is a summary of what we expended and 17 what we expect to expend on the sequoyah effort, and this is i
18 strictly on the environmental qualification reviews.
19 MR. THOMPSON:
And this is one, again, where I think 20 the TVA program that'we have seen today, as they have revised
~ ;21 it, is pretty first-rate and'one-where we are pleased with the 22 progress they are making, although there still are other 23 issues that need to be resolved.
24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Your conclusion about no 25 major programmatic deficiencies applies to this corrected i
50 1
program?.
2 MR. TAYLOR:
Yes.
It's the corrected program.
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Because there clearly were 4
programmatic deficiencies before.
5 MR. DENTON:
It's a case where we are putting in far 6
more resources than the normal EQ area.
We decided to make a 7
100-percent review of the documentation in these packages and 8
spent a lot of time looking at that and a far greater sample 9
of the implementation, because we felt the last thing we want i
10 to see happen is the plant return to operation and then find 11 another EQ problem.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Right.
13 MR. DENTON:
So we're going che extra mile here, and 14 it's taking resources to make sure that doesn't happen.
15 MR. STELLO:
And this is an excellent example where 16 we didn't sit back and wait.
When we knew there were i
17 problems, we went in, we looked, we identified them, they've 18 gotten corrected, the equipment is now being modified and 19 being put back into the plant and tested.
So it's a typical 20 example.
21 You can argue whether you are crossing this line, as 22 to whether we're doing TVA's work.
It's not.
We have to 23 eventually make that judgment, and we want to make sure that i
24 we make it early enough to avoid impacting them 1
25 unnecessarily.
And we've done that.
e-.---
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51 1
MR. THOMPSON:
The next two issues deal with areas 2
for which NRR has the lead responsibility, and Tom Novak, who 3
is the Acting Division Director for the PWR Licensing A Group, 4
has the presentation for that.
5 (Slide.]
6 MR. NOVAK:
With regard to employee concerns, that 7
number, over 4000, is really, in fact, reaching 5000 as of 8
today, so we are talking about a large number of employee 9
concerns as of the end of January.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Are they still coming in?
11-MR. NOVAK:
They are coming in.
For example, 12 with the new program initiated at Sequoyah, there is something 13 on the order of 20 employee concerns that have been registered with the TVA Employee Concern Program, to give you a feeling 14 15 for that.
16 MR. THOMPSON:
But part of that, you understand, 17 they do exit interviews of everybody that leaves, so you would 18 expect the process to generate -- you know, they have finished 19 their initial process of having the people onsite, these 20 mandatory walkthroughs that --
21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
At Watts Barr.
22' MR. THOMPSON:
At Watts Barr, right.
23 MR. DENTON:
One point I want to make before we 24 begin is, our comments on the Employee concern Program is 25 applied to the program that was in place when we were down
-, - -. ~ - -
,,v,--,
52 1
there reviewing it.
You know, it may be changed by Mr. White, 2
and we're awaiting his views on that.
So our comments apply 3
to tha program that was in place at the time we audited it.
4 MR. NOVAK:
Of the 5000 concerns, approximately 300 5-have been considered'to be applicable to Sequoyah, and that 6
300 is broken down as follows:
7 200 of them were judged to be applicable to Sequoyah 8
because they were a generic issue.
A welding concern could 9
have fallen in as applicable to Sequoyah because it was 10 generic in nature.
And then about 100 concerns were described 11 as being more or less plant-specific to Sequoyah.
12 Now to date, the Staff'has conducted several 13 inspections of the program that TVA initiated, and we are 14 satisfied with that program programmatically.
We have made 15
' comments on it.
TVA has adopted those comments, and we will I
16 be writing to them this week approving, in a sense, the 17 program that they have had in place up to date.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Well, depending on what 19 they do to change it, though, you may have to go back and take 20 a fresh look.
21 MR. NOVAK:
They have agreed te make those changes, 22 and if they are done appropriately, we would have no problem 23 with the program in place today.
24 Now with regard to what we are doing with these 25 employee concerns, all safety-related employee concerns -- and
53 1
, that's a number on the order of 1600 or so -- are transmitted 2
to us.
Now they would come in in what we have referred to as 3
K Forms.
That's the first description of the concern.
4 All of those concerns come to the Staff, and we have 5
contracted with Franklin Research, and they are effectively 6
developing a database, and they are taking each of these 7
employee concerns, once they have been described as being 8
safety-related, and they are putting them in the database, and 9
then they are keyword indexing them, and they are adding that 10 data to all of the allegations that the Staff has received.
11 For example, there are about 20 allegations 12 regarding Sequoyah, and so that subject matter is going into 13 that same database.
And then the Staff has also asked 1
14 Franklin to read the NSRS reports, and specific l
1 15 recommendations from these NSRS reports are going into the 16 database.
17 Then when you ask for a search, if you ask for a 18 listing of welding and then welding and then certifications, 1
19 some sub-keyword, you will get a printout not just from the 2.0 employee concern, but everything that went into that 21 database.
And we think this will be very effective for us in l
22 completing our reviews.
23 Now the other thing the Franklin people will be 24 doing for us, they'll be reading all of the investigations.
25 Now this is the second stage of what TVA does with a concern.
54 1
They study it; they go out into the field, and they write up 2
an investigation.
That is being put into it.
Now what weIve asked Franklin Research to do is, by 3
4 the subject matter, tie it to certain elements of our Standard 5
Review Plans, so that we can properly assign these employee 6
concerns-or NSRS issues to the right people on the Staff.
And 7
we think that will really reduce the times that we'd have to 1
8 go back over and question a decision, because we'll be using 9
all of the data that's available on that subject.
4 10 Now what we plan to do still.is to go back to the i
11 Sequoyah' sites and do more inspections of their 12 investigations, because that is still the area that most work i
13 has to be accomplished on right now by TVA., is to look at how 14 they investigated these concerns.
And then we would also 15 follow up on how they attempt to resolve that issue, as to 16 whether it will be done before or after restart.
17 MR. DENTON:
I think in view of time, what we're l
18 saying is, we've looked at the criteria by which they have 19 developed and documented the concerns and the criteria by
' which they propose to identify whether they are safety-related 20 21 or non-safety, how they looked at generic.
We're satisfied 22 with the criteria that were in use at the time we were there.
23 So we have made a lot of progress on this, but TVA 24 still has a lot of work, and there's a lot of these concerns 25-still within their system, still being investigated and l
55 1
resolved.
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
But I take it, you are 3
going to look at both aspects, both the program itself, which 4
you have taken a look at, and you are going to also look at 5
how TVA is actually implementing them, and not just relying on 6
the fact that they've got a program.
1 7
MR. DENTON:
All we are reporting on today is 8
looking at the criteria in place and the system, and I think 9
somewhat like EQ, we are satisfied that have the system in 10 place and that it's a system that can work.
It was in place, 11 and it may still be.
12 MR. NOVAK:
Jim, as a final note, under the TVA 13 actions remaining, thus far of the investigations'that they 14 have completed, about a half of them require some sort of 15 corrective action.
So there is that avenue to be followed 16 through yet, and that will be substantial.
17 CHAIRMAN PALIADINO:
When you say " corrective 4
18 action," hardware corrective action?
19 MR. NOVAK:
It may be hardware.
It may be procedure i
20
. changes.
It may be additional training.
21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
So they are still proving 22 out at about a 50 percent rate, that half of them are valid?
23 MR. NOVAK:
It may be, yes.- May I have the next 24 slide?
25 (Slide.]
1 E
-...-.n.-
56 1
CHAIRMAN PALIADINO:
I expect there is quite a 2
spectrum of corrective actions that need to be taken.
3 MR. NOVAK:
On the welding issue, as Harold noted earlier, Dr. Lea is heading up the entire welding program for 4
5 the staff.
Unfortunately, he is ill today and can't join us.
6 I will just summarize what is going on.
Again, out 7
of the employee concerns, almost 500 concerns were identified 8
as being related to welding.
That's the data base that we 9
start from.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
It is 500, not 507 11 MR. THOMPSON:
No.
That's 50 for Sequoyah and about 12 500 total.
Just to save a little time here, the emphasis that 13 we are placing is that these concerns describe a certain 14 issue.
There is a certain problem or issue that we feel needs l
15 to be addressed.
What we are looking at is in a sense 16 collating these concerns into separate issues.
There are 17
. roughly about seven or eight different issues that need to be 18 addressed as part of the welding concern.
19 I have listed kind of the four under here.
What we 20 are trying to do next is look at specifically TVA's welding 21 inspection plan for Sequoyah.
We think that is fundamental, 22 what they are going to go back in and look at as a 23 re-inspection.
We have made one visit to the site.
We looked 24 at the administrative review they did.
They went back and 25 looked at a lot of the certifications of welds.
They have I
i l
T
\\
l 57 1
looked at the in-service inspections that have been performed 2
at'Sequoyah.
We looked at that and of it.
3 We also looked at their re-inspections.
We have 4
.thus far found that to be an adequate program.
I think.we are 5
cautiously pleased with the effort thus far.
We will be going I
5 back down again this month, as is mentioned here, and the NDE 7
van will also be going down the and of February.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSE1STINE:
Tom, it is a little l
9 unclear to me how the welding issues at Sequoyah fit in with 10 the welding issues at Watts Bar, and how you can say what you 11 just said about the confidence in the program, going ahead on 12 Sequoyah.
For uxample, the standards and criteria that are 13 going to be applied.
Is there now agreement on the part of 14 the staff and TVA that you now have agreed that what codes or 15 standards ought to be applied and what criteria should be used in evaluating whether the welding work was done adequately?
16 17 It seems to me you need that --
18 MR. NOVAK:
Well, let me go back.
What I wanted to 19 say earlier is that from our rs. view of welding concerns, they 20 generally. fall into various categories.
We have termed those 21 categories to be issues.
There are certain technical issues 22 that need to be addressed.
Your example is a good issue.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSFLSTINE:
That's one of them; right?
24 MR. NOVAK:
Yes.
What we have seen thus far, even 25' though there are almost 500 welding concerns for TVA and 50
58 1
for Sequoyah, we don't see that order of magnitude as more~
2 issues being raised by the welding concerns at Watts Bar.
3 They generally are all of the same~ nature.
You may have ten 4
people in one site saying that's'the problem and a fewer 5
number at sequoyah, let's say.
6 What we are really looking at is to see that the 7
issues that are raised are going to be addressed both at 8
Sequoyah as well as Watts Bar.
9 We will have to look further at the level, but 10 certainly ths-issue itself, we feel, is probably generic to 11 both sites.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I guess the question I 13 have, and it may be that B.D. needs to address this when ha 14 gets back or whatever, but if one of the questions, as I 15 understand it, is what standards were applied for the welding 16 work and did they change back and forth on the standards, did 17 they adjust them.
It seems to me you need to reach agreement 18 on what the standards should be and what criteria you are 19 going to use for accepting the welding work.
20 Second, you need to decide whether that samc kind of 21 practice went on at Sequoyah that apparently went on at Watts 22 Bar.
Is that to be done before TVA is sending in a team to do 23 re-inspections?
Do those people that are doing the work for 4
24 them know what it is they are looking for?
Do they know what 25 it is they are insp'ecting acainst, and do we have confidence i
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59 1
that they understand that and that they are right?
2 MR. DENTON:
I think there has been a lot of work in 3
that area, Commissioner.
We don't have B.D. here today.
4-Remember, we hired a team of consultants to advise us, just'in 5
those areas of codes.
My understanding is.there has been a 6
lot of progress made between the staff and TVA on the 7
criteria.
8 Dave Smith is here.
He may want to comment.
9 MR. SMITH:
I'm Dave Smith.
I work for B.D.
10 on the part of the standards and codes which were
~
11-originally called for, which we would say were with the FSAR 12 commitments and with which we granted the license.
13 In each of the plants, TVA has set up their phase 14 one and phase two.
Phase one is what we sort of like to 15 describe as a paper chase, sort of administrative check to 16 follow from the FSAR commitments through their generic 17 in-house fabrication control documents.
They have all sorts 18 of numbers, and things like that.
They follow those to their t
19 drawings to see that the commitments and requirements of the 20' codes and everything else followed down to the final piece of 21 equipment.
22 They are specifically addrsssing that in phase one.
23 The phase one effort has been completed at sequoyah.
We have 24 not asen their report yet.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That will tell you whether i
- .,-w---
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~ " "
60 1
they changed from the original FSAR commitment and if so, 2
where the work was done under a different standard?
3 MR. SMITH:
Yes, sir.
4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Then you get to p'hase two.
5 MR. SMITH:
Right.
They are into phase two now.
6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
What does that tell you?
7 MR. SMITH: -Phase two involves basically one, S
Bechtel at Sequoyah is reviewing things like the welders'
-9 qualifications, maintenance of qualifications, inspectors' 10 maintenance of qualifications, weld rod control, the paper t
11 that reflects that the work was done and that there was a 12 continuous path of everything, that the requirements are 13-consistently being met.
That is the Bechtel audit, which is 14 strictly again a paper thing.
15 When they had their presentation to us on January i
16 7th, we, the staff, suggested and they implemented, a 17 re-inspection plan of looking physically at the welds.
We 18 concentrated or.they concentrated on the systems which did not 19 have that much attention in the original construction.
In i
20 other words, we stayed away.from Class I and Class II, ASME 21' class systems, because they obviously have a lot of 22 attention.
We concentrated on Class 3 and un-Class systems, 23 like the AISC design supports.
t 24 We selected six categories or groups, one of which 25 was piping.
They went through thoce and selected various
61 1.
systems.
CCW was one that I remember.
There were both 2
stainless and carbon steel systems.
In each one -- that is 3
that one group.
They looked at a minimum of 100 welds in that 4
group.
In each of the five other groups, they looked at at 5
least 100 welds.
They have done more than that.
That is the 6
physical re-inspection of welds which are to address sort of 7
like the generic type of concern."
g 8
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
When they do the physical 9
inspection, are they assuming the weld has to be adequate to 10 meet the original FSAR commitment and to verify the work was 11 done in a way that' satisfied the original FSAR commitment?
12 MR. SMITH:
No.
They are doing it to the drawing.
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
If you finished phase one 14 and phase one shows they changed the FSAR commitment and they 15 did something that was unacceptable, then there is going to 16 have to be another program to go back --
17 MR. SMITH:
We are avaiting the results of that.
We 18 don't know that.
Yes, that's true.
19 MR. DENTON:
I think it is somewhat like the EQ 20 area.
We approved basically a program and we have commented 21 on the program.
They are implementing it.
It remains to be 22 seen what really gets found.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
My concern was they were 24 doing this inspection program on the physical welds only for 25 us to find out later on that whatever standard they were using l
. ~
f 62 l
1 wasn't the standard in the original FSAR commitment, either 2
for Watts Bar or for Sequoyah.
3 CHAIRHAN PALLADINO:
You have to inspect against the 4
drawing.
I don't know how you can inspect against an FSAR.
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes, but if the drawing is 6
wrong --
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Then that's another problem.
8 MR. STELLO:
My understanding is they'are following 9
the FSAR commitments.
In at least some of the instances, I 10 think on the structure welding, they are also going to use the 11 more stringent, latest standard, in terms of looking at welds 12 at all.
13'
'. COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Wait a minute.
That is 14 different.
The ASME code gets periodically revised.
If they 15 built it to a certain --
16 MR. STELLO:
I said ASW, the structure welding code, 17 AWS.
18 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
I don't see how you can hold 19 them to --
20 MR. STELLO:
No, no.
We are not holding them.
They 21 have indicated they are going to be in that case, as I 22 understand it, using both.
If the more stringent one would 23 apply, they are.
When I was walking through the plant, I was 24 really impressed at some of the interpretations they had.
25 They are really being very, very liberal in terms of
~.
63 1
interpreting welding.
2 There is one particular weld that had a very tiny 3
splatter on it.
They identified it as something that needed 4
to be repaired because that specifically was part of a code 5
commitment:and there is a certain distance away from the weld 6
where you can or cannot strike an arc.
Their interpretation 7
is very, very strict and very conservative, based on what I S
saw down there.
9 Please don't understand that we have told them to do 10 that.
That's what they have come up with, their own program.
11 This is what they are doing, not what we have said.
This has 12 nothing to do in terms of -- we would have been satisfied had 13 they lived with the commitments.
That would have been enough 14 for us.
It appears they are very, very conservative.
From my 15 visit at the plant, I was very impressed at how conservative, 16 at things that looked perfectly all right, they are 17 identifying them to go back.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
One could get carried away with 19 that approach.
20 MR. STELLO:
That is their call.
I would not want 21 to be in a position to have the NRC go and tell you, you are 22 going too far.
That is their call.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
No, I agree.
I can't help the 24 observation that sometimes one can go too far.
25 MR. STELLO:
Sometimes that is true.
There is an
64 1
over reaction and they will go -- this is not the first time.
{
l 2
CHAIRMAN PALIADINO:
However, if they b.egin to 3
perceive they have to go that far to satisfy us, then I think 4
some dialogue is necessary.
5 MR. STELLO:
Yes, and I think they understand that.
6 MR. DENTON:
I think we are approaching it though in 1
i 7
the same manner we are approaching all the areas.
They 8-propose a program and criteria, we meet and agree on that, 9
then they go implement.it and we audit the implementation.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Do you have more?
11 MR. SMITH:
Yes.
In the welding, which is the 12 structural welding, which was originally designed and built to 13 AISC, which imposes AWS D1.1, which is the structural steel 14 welding code, if you read the code -- it's very critical in 15 certain insignificant details, which the industry formed a 16 group called the Nuclear Construction Issues Group.
Welding 17 was, of course, one of those things where there were a lot of 18 problems.
This has been recent.
l 19 They came up with another set of criteria which is l
l 20 allowed within Dl.1.
Dl.1 says the engineer can -- I don't 21 want-to say pretty much do whatever he wants -- he can i
22 evaluate and justify other sources of criteria, other levels 23 of criteria.
The Nuclear construction Issues Group did that.
l 24 They issued a document which we have accepted.
25' Many plants had also gone down their own path and
65 1
had alternate criteria to D1.1.
Some were minor changes.
2 Some were very extensive.
We have accepted the Nuclear 3
Construction Issues Group's standard because it was a 4
standardization.
It is al.so probably more stringent than the 5
most commonly used alternatives to criteria in Dl.1, which was 6
by Bechtel Corporation.
7 TVA is using the NCIG criteria when they do their 8
physical re-inspections.
What it does do is it eliminates j
9 what would be' called a rejection for minor, insignificant 10 defects, that would have been reportable under Dl.1.
11 COKKISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
They may not be meeting 12 the standard they committed to in the FSAR, but if they 13 aren't, what they are testing against is a standard you have 14 accepted?
15 MR. SMITH:
Correct.
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
^17 MR. NOVAK:
Just two quick remarks on this slide --
18 MR. DENTON:
I think we probably have covered it, 19 Tom.
We will say more about it in time.
20 I have put together a conclusion slide.
I think we 21 have hit all the points in the course of the briefing that I 22 wanted to make, mainly that tnis project is receiving the top 23 priority that the Commission asked us to put on it.
It has 24 had extensive involvement by all your offices.
We have made a 25 lot of progress on Sequoyah.
We have work to be done on the
66 1
other plants.
2 There is going to be a significant staff effort 3
required in the next few months.
Finally, and I think the 4
most important part here, TVA is re-evaluating their effort 5
and no schedules are available.
We will then tailor our 6
actions, depending on what sort of information we receive in 7
the next few weeks from TVA.
1 8
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Thank you very much.
Any more?
9~
MR. STELLO:
No, that concludes it.
We have to say, 10 Mr. Chairman, and I hope we have persuaded the Commission, 11 that we are in fact on top of the issues as we know them, and 12 we are not going to be in a position of holding up review of 13 TVA.
Anything that is needed, we are prepared to do to the 14 best of our ability to accommodate it, so that when they are 15 ready, we will be ready.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
One comment I might make.
I 17 know it is a challenge to us.
There is a lot to be done.
I 18 presume you are giving attention to making sure that the staff 19 power is put on when it is most usable and not just on there i
20 so that we can get ahead with a plan, unless it is part of 21 your thought process.
22 We have got to be careful on all of these things 23 that we react appropriately, but we have to guard against over i
24 reacting also, as well.
25 Let me ask one question.
How does the staff intend
67 1
to advise TVA regarding their many concerns and how they are 2
to be resolved, or if they need to be resolved before 3
re-start?
4 MR. DENTON:
We are doing that after every time we 5
interact with TVA.
On every item, we give them a verbal exit 6
interview or discussion, on what we think before we leave that 7
inspection or before we leave-that safety review meeting, and 8
then we follow it up in writing.
The conclusions are coming 9
through the senior management team on the critical issues.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Could I have a list of the 11 issues, for example, that you have identified?
1 12 MR. STELLO:
They have this comprehensive list that 13 we sent to you, which identifies everything-we know of.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That is the list for 15 present purposes?
16 MR. STELLO:
By topic identification.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Except that employee concerns f
18 will uncover others, some of which we already know.
19 MR. DENTON:
We will be sending them --
4 l
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Shouldn't those be added to the 21 list?
For example, cable pulling, that is one that is 22 buried under employees concerns, when it is identified as a I
23 real problem, should it be pulled out as another one?
24 MR. STEL10:
It will be.
j 25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I am going to ask the f
1
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68 1
Commissioners if they have more questions, but I want to 2
remind them we also have OI and CIA in the wings to be heard 3
from.
Let me ask if there are further questions.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I would just make one 5
comment or two, short ones.
I agree with what you said, Joe,
~
6 and I think it is important that we keep our compass straight 7
on this thing.
If indeed we under reacted over the-last I
8~
several years in dealing with TVA, we want to be careful that 9
we don't over teact now.
There is a certain appropriate I
10 allocation of rtsources that we should give this problem.
11 I am impressed, frankly, with what you have done and 12 the way you have organized your efforts.
We'need to see to it i
13 that we are not on the critical path to delay their re-start, 14 but it is also not our job to do their job for them, J
15 especially at the expense of other licensees, to whom we have 1
16 responsibilities as well.
17 I am reminded of an old saying that roughly 18 paraphrased, involves keeping your head when everybody around 19 you is losing theirs and blaming it on you.
I think that 20 appliac to us somewhat here.
Let's keep our heads straight 21 here and do our job.
It looks to me like you are on the right 22 path.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Just a brief comment.
I 24 would say it looks to me like you have made a lot of progress 25 since we had our last meeting with you.
I know you all and i
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69 1
your people have put in a lot of time and effort.
I was very 2
auch plea <u6 to see the staff paper and to see an 3
identification of the issues.
I also liked the idea of.
4 identifying who is responsible on our side for each of these 5
issues and each of the items.
6 I agree with Joe.
I think the next step is going to be to try and break out, as we learn of them, the employee 7
A 8
concerns and NSRS issues, and have an identification of those i
9 as well, because I think those categories include a lot of i
10 items.
11 It does look like to me that you all have been able 12 to accomplish a fair amount in the past few weeks since we met 13 last.
'14 MR. STELLO:
The list is getting so long, I would be 15 surprised if anything else comes out that we don't have a name 1
16 for it already.
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Well, I suspect even as i
18 you look at the new employee concerns, so much has been 19 identified already that what you are going to find is lots 20 more examples of some of the same things.
21 MR. STELLO:
That's right.
22 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
I have just a couple brief 4
23 comments.
24 First of all, it is appropriate, I think, in any
{
25 case like this that we do focus in on our major problems, and l
70 1
that is exactly what we are doing.
I think the Staff is doing 2
an excellent job in mobilizing your senior managers.
I think 3
Hugh Thompson's. role as the coordinator, and with dohn 01shinskyfromtheRegionparticipatingfulltime,}Ithink 4
5 that certainly the Staff is doing a very commendable job.
s 6
I do think, too, I was impressed in going through 7
the material you sent us with the ' fact that you are nailing 8
down, as Commissioner Asselstine pointed out, individual 9
accountability, and your part charts, I thought, were 10 appropriate.
It shows an organizational logic that feels to I
11 me, on problems like this one that are rather large, you 12 simply have got to get your arms around them some way, and 13 that is an ekcellent way to do it.
So I was impressed with J
14 that, too.
15 I certainly agree with Mr. Ste11o's comments that 16 NRC regulates and the utilities construct, maintain, operate 17 and manage, that they are separate roles; that we and the 18 utilities both focus on the public health and safety, but we i
19 do have separate roles.
Our role is to regulate, and I think 20 it is proper that we look into all our responsibilities in
-21 this regard.
22 I don't think you are managing the plant, and I 23 don't think you are getting out in front, although I think you 24 are keeping right up with them, in parallel, it looks like to
)
25 me, but that is appropriate.
That's what we should do.
And 1
1 71 1
the more coordination and assistance we can give them as it 2
goes along to make sure that they are going to be properly 3
regulated is appropriate.
4 I think that one lesson that comes out to me very 5
clear here, it really points out the value of I
6 standardization.
If we had all of our plants, or at least 7
many of them in the country, standardized, maybe three or four different kinds of plants, you could focus your resources now, 8
9 yc could take people who are very qualified and very up to 10 date on things, and you can handle problems like this in a 11 much more efficient manner.
12 So when we have'different plants,.and now you are 13 talking about other plants that you are reviewing, too, 14 people are resources, and qualified and trained people 15 certainly come to the fore, in my mind, as the key to helping 16 us solve this problem.
So standardization would certainly 17 have been helpful in this case.
18 The last point I would like to make is we are indeed 19 putting a big effort into this TVA and it is appropriate, but 20 I hope when all is said and done when we finish, that we can 21 perhaps form a group that will look back and say lessons 22 learned on this and it will indeed perhaps help us as far as 23 we get to the future and maybe will allow us to see if we can 24 do something a.little bit different as far as the regulatory 25 program is concerned to be mindful of a problem that is this
l 72 1
large.
2 So I hope we won't, you know, go on with this to the 3
next issue, and I hope will spend some time, at least, trying 4
to gather together what you did and how you did it and be self 5
critical and see what we can do to help ourselves in the 6
future.
I think it is something that we should focus on.
7 CHAIRMAN PALIADINO:
Thank you.
8 I wanted to make a point and I was hoping we could 9
go on.
I wanted to take a five-minute break and then go on to 10 OI and OIA.
11 I, too, appreciate the progress that has been made.
12 I would caution about getting too involved as to whether or 13 not there was a breakdown in regulation.
I think, as 14 Commissioner Zech has pointed out, we do have lessons to be 15
-learned from this, and I hope as we go along that we will make 16 note of them so that they can be taken into account in 17 planning future endeavors.
18 I think I have asked for particular attention to 19 lessons learned.
20 MR. STELLO:
I wanted to say, Mr. Chairman, that we 21 received your memorandum of February 5th directing our 22 attention to just that task.
I appreciate particularly the 23 memrandum recognizing that we ought to be careful so wa are 24 not diverting our resources.
25' As you are clearly aware now, your senior staff, who
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73 1
needs to be involved, are spending a considerable amount of 2
time in making sure that we resolve the issues before us. We 3
are not interested in history right now.
When we get some 4
time, I think it is very important for us to go back to look 5
at what happened, understand what happened, look at what we 6
can do differently, and not be the least bit hesitant to f7 identify, if there are lessons there, what those lessons are 8
and be willing and ready to make whatever changes seem to be 9
right based on that experience.
10 We want to do that.
We think it is important for an 11 organization to learn from experiences, and we very much want 12 to do that.
13 Now, I believe it is important for Harold and the 14 team to have some time to reflect on that issue when they are 15 near finished so it does not detract from where they are 16 now.
As you are aware, Congressman Dingell has a completely 17 independent investigation related to this specific issue. To 18 the extent we can get any insight from activities that they 19 have done, we would also find that useful.
20 As you also are aware, you have asked CIA to look 21 into matters, and we want to be.sure to have that benefit.
I 22 am sure Mr. Hayes will cheerfully cooperate and also provide 23 us some insight, and I am sure if he is reluctant you will all 24 be willing to help me persuade him that he needs to provide us 25 with that kind of help, too.
i l
74 1
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Victor, I have been trying 2
to convince Mr. Hayes ever since I got here that he is not 3
supposed to be cheerful in his job.
4
[ Laughter.)
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Joe, I have one quick 6
question.
7 The letter that you-all sent to TVA asking about the 8
employee concern program.
I know that Steve White had called 9
me, and I think he called you, Joe, about the letter.
At the 10 time I talked with him, he indicated that very shortly after 11 he was able to conclude his contractual discussions with QTC, 12 like within a matter of two or three days, he would be in a 1
1 13-position to finalize the employee concern program and put it 1
14 in writing and get it up to us, i
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
When we met with him on the 16 31st, he said it was going into effect on ttc 1st, but I i
17 haven't seen it.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
.Yes, I was going to 19 ask: Have we got it?
20 MR. STELLO:
Well, Mr. Denton's letter that was sent l
21 a week ago clearly identifies after you are done with that i
22 negotiation, please provide us with that.
I don't happen to 23 have the answer, but the impression I have gotten from them is 24 they were fairly near ready to provide us wiath that, so I 2
25 expect we will see'it soon.
B -
9 75 L
1 MR. THOMPSON:
The letter is on Steve White's desk 2
today.
White is not in' town to sign the letter.
They are 3
making a revision to the employee concern program manual.
~
4 That revision will not be sent until'probably the and of next 5
week. I think the real program description of what they are j
really going to do at Watts Bar will be probably a week from 6
7 today.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
It seems to me 9
there are a lot of questions about the employee concern 10 program and that is really all up in the air until we see what l
11 it really is.
12 CHAIRMAN PALIADINO:
All right.
13 I am going to suggest now that we take a five-minute 14 break.
That gives the Secretary an opportunity to realign 15 people.
j 16 Would you kindly wait, please?
Give the Secretary 1
17 time to change the audience, and then we will come back and go 18 into closed session.
19 (Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m. the meeting was recessed, i
20 to reconvene in a closed session.]
21
{
22 23 24 25
1 CERTIFICATE OF-OFFICIAL REPORTER 2
3 4
5 This is to certify that the attached proceedings 6
before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the
.7 matter of:
8 9
Name of Proceeding:
10 11
. Docket No.
12 Place:
13 Date:
14 15 were held as herein appears and that this is the original 16 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission.
18 g
/7 -3/
(Signature)
W ( w/
1g n.n h,_c
. + -
(Typed Name of Reporter) y 6
v 20 21 22 l
23 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
24 25 e-----
e-
---v-
e t
STAFF BRIEFING TVA NUCLEAR PLANTS FEBRUARY 7, 1986
DISCUSSION ITEMS 0
STATUS OF STAFF ACTIONS REGARDING TVA FACILITIES, AS PRESENTED.
. IN SECY 86-1A, PROVIDED TO THE COMMISSION JANUARY 31, 1986 0
PRELIMINARY RESOURCE ESTIMATES FOR SEQUOYAH 0
SUMMARY
OF TVA EFFORT'S IMPACT ON STAFF 0
WILL FOCUS ON RECENT ACTIVITIES IN AREAS OF EQUIPMENT QUALIFICATION, EMPLOYEE CONCERNS, AND WELDING AT SEQUOYAH
BACKGROUND
~
0 ON DECEMBER 13,.1985, CHAIRMAN PALLAD,INO DIRECTED STAFF TO PREPARE PERIODIC WRITTEN REPORTS SUMMARIZTNG MAJOR NRC PLANS, SCHEDULES, AND ORGANIZATIONAL' ASSIGNMENTS RELATED TO ALL TVA PLANTS O
FIRST MONTHLY REPORT PROVIDED JANUARY 2, 1986 (SECY 86-1) 0 COMMISSION BRIEFED ON JANUARY 7, 1986 0
TVA APPOINTED STEVEN WHITE AS NEW MANAGER 0F NUCLEAR POWER ON JANUARY 13, 1986 O
TVA REEVALUATING STATUS OF THEIR ONG0ING EFFORTS TO ADDRESS CONCERNS REGARDING RESTART OR LICENSING OF TVA FACILITIES.
O NO TVA SCHEDULES HAVE BEEN ISSilED t
-_.--n,
- -. ~,, _.,
ISSUES SliMMARY FOR SEQUOYAH ISSUE LEAD RESP, 1.
EMPLOYEE CONCERNS NRR 2.
ALLEGATIONS NRR 30 WELDING NRR 4.
DESIGN CONTROL IE 5.
ELECTRICAL DESIGN CALCULAT!0NS NRR 6.
EQUIPMENT QUALIFICATION IE 7.
OPERATIONAL READINESS RII 8.
CABLE TRAY SUPPORTS RII 9.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION REVISIONS NRR 10.
WRONGD0ING, INTIMIDATION & HARASSMENT 01 11.
NSRS REPORTS NRR 12.
CORPORATE ACTIVITIES NRR
~'
3.
0A PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION RII O
WATTS BAR ISSUE
SUMMARY
ISSUE LEAD RESP, 1.
EMPLOYEE CONCERNS.
NRR 2.
ALLEGATIONS NRR 3,
CONCERNS IN NSRS REPORTS NRR 4.
QUALITY ASSURANCE
.NRR 5.
WELDING NRR 6.
EQUIPMENT QUALIFICATION NRR 7.
LICENSING ITEMS NRR 9.
WRONGDOING, INTIMIDATION AND HARASSMENT 01 10.
OPERATIONAL READINESS RII
--,n.-
BROWNS FERRY ISSUE
SUMMARY
ISSUE REVIEW RESP, 1.
SITE MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION NRR
?.
OPERATIONAL READINESS PROGRAM RII-3.
MAINTENANCE IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM RII 4.
SITE MASTER SCHEDULE NO SPECIFIC ACTION 5.
INTEGRATED SCHEDULE-FOR NRC REQUIRED NRR MODIFICATIONS 6.
SEl~SMIC ISSUES RII 6A. SEISMIC QUALIFICATION OF CABLE TRAYS RII
- 68. PIPING AND SUPPORTS RIT 6c, HVAC RII
- 60. TORUS PIPING NRR 7.
DESIGN CONTROL IE 8.
DISPOSITION OF CONTRACTOR RECOMMENDATIONS NRR 9.
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALIFICATION PROGRAM IE 10.
INDEPENDENT SAFETY ENGINEERING GROUP NRR 11.
FIRE PROTECTION PROGRAM NRR 12.
SHIFT STAFFING NRR 13.
EMPLOYEE CONCERNS PROGRAM NRR 14.
EMERGENCY RESPONSE CAPABILITY RII 15.
PIPE INSPECTION / STRESS RELIEVING / REPAIRS NPR 16.
APPENDIX J PROGRAM NRR 17.
SECONDARY CONTAINMENT ISOLATION DAMPERS RII 18 DIESEL GENERATORS RII 19.
REGULATORY PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM RII 20.
OPERATOR REEXAMINATION RII 21.
QUALITY ASSURANCE PROGRAM RII
'2.
INPD EVALUATION iE 23.
NSRS REPORTS NRR 24.
LICENSING ISSUES NRR 25.
LIMITOROUE VALVE MOTOR OPERATOR INSPECTION RII 26.
RESTART TEST AND INSPECTION PROGRAM RII 27 MODIFIED DESIGN REVIEW RII
RESOURCES
SUMMARY
' 0--
ESTIMATED RESOURCES FOR SEQUOYAH (APPROX - 500-600 MAN WEEKS)
150 RII 300
< - 0 RESOURCE NEEDS FOR WATTS BAR UNDER REVIEW 0
RESOURCE NEEDS FOR BROWNS FERRY'AND BELLEFONTE ARE INDETERMINATE O
e m
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IMPACT OF TVA FFFORT ON STAFF O
THREE E0 INSPECTIONS DEFERRED (P0TENTIAL ADDITIONAL DEFERRALS MAY RESULT FROM WATTS BAR AND BROWNS FERRY EQ INSPECTIONS)
'O NEXT SCHEDULED CAT INSPECTION DEFERRED 0
TWO "SMALL-SCALE" PAT INSPECTIONS DEFERRED 0
INITIATION OF THIRD SAFETY SYSTEM OUTAGE MODIFICATION INSPECTION DEFERRED 0
REGIONAL INSPECTION PROGRAM CURRENTLY UNDER EVALUATION 0
BEAVER VALLEY 2, CALLAWAY AND ONE NEW PROJECT MANAGERS DIVERTED TO TVA EFFORT 0
NRR WILL DEFER THE COMPLETION OF IMPORTANT SELECTED PLANT-SPECIFIC LICENSING REVIEWS AND THE REVIEW 0F THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SELECTED SAFETY ISSUES 0
SELECTED SENIOR STAFF MEMBERS AND MANAGEMENT RESOURCES REDIRECTED SOLELY TO TVA EFFORT
r 1
e SEQUOYAH - E0llIPMENT GUALIFICATION PROBLEM:
TVA'S PROGRAM TO IMPLEMENT THE EQUIPMENT QUALIFICATION RULE AT SEQUOYAH 1 AND 2 MUST INSURE THEY FULLY MEET ALL REQUIREMENTS OF 10 CFR 50,49, LEAD RESPONSIBILITY:
IE STAFF ACTIONS REVIEWED APPR0XIMATELY 2/3 0F THE 95 EQUIPMENT QUALIFICATION FILES AT SEQUOYAH, NO MAJOR PROGRAMMATIC DEFICIENCIES IDENTIFIED VARIOUS ITEMS REQUIRING TVA RESOLUTION PREPARING STAFF SER PLAN TO REVIEW REMAINING EQ FILES WHEN TVA HAS THEM READY (ESTIMATE MID-LATE FEBRUARY)
TVA ACTIONS REMAINING COMPLETION OF REMAINING EO FILES AND CERTIFICATION THAT E0 REQUIREMENTS MET RESOLUTION OF VARIOUS IDENTIFIED DISCREPANCIES OUALIFICATION OF ROCKBESTOS CABLING RESOLUTION OF POSTULATED HIGH ENERGY LINE BREAK IN VALVE VAULT AND ITS IMPACT ON INSTALLED EQUIPMENT RESOURCE ESTIMATES NRR 13 MANWEEKS IE 29 MANWEEKS REGION II 11 MANWEEKS.
CONTRACTOR
$45,000 J
SEQUOYAH - EMPLOYEE CONCERNS PROBLEM:
OVER I4,000 TVA EMPLOYEE CONCERNS HAVE BEEN RAISED, SOME I
0F WHICH INVOLVE POTENTIALLY SAFETY-RELATED AND INTIMIDATION / HARASSMENT / WRONGDOING ISSilES, A PORTION OF THESE CONCERNS ~ APPLY TO SEQUOYAH LEAD RESPONSIBILITY:
NRR STAFF ACTIONS:
CONDUCTED AN INITIAL EVALUATION AND INSPECTIONS OF TVA PROGRAM, SOME PROGRAMMATIC DEFICIENCIES; PREPARING LETTER TO TVA DEVELOPING-INTEGRATED DATA BASE ON ALL EMPLOYEE CONCERNS, ALLEGATIONS, NSRS ISSUES-PREPARING FOR ADDITIONAL ONSITE INSPECTIONS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF TVA CORRECTIVE ACTIONS (EXPECT MULTIPLE INSPECTIONS IN FEB/ MARCH 1986)
STAFF SER WILL BE PREPARED, ADDRESSING SAFETY-RELATED ISSUES TVA ACTIONS REMAINING COMPLETE EVALUATION AND RESOLUTION OF GENERIC AND SPECIFIC EMPLOYEE CONCERNS APPLICABLE TO SEQUOYAH RESPOND'T0 STAFF CONCERNS REGARDING EMPLOYEE CONCED.N PROGRAM MAKE TRANSITION FROM QTC-ADMINISTERED PROGRAM TO TVA-ADMINISTERED' PROGRAM RESOURCE ESTIMATES NRR 20 MANWEEKS IE-31 MANWEEKS REGION II 66 MANWEEKS CONTRACTOR
$150,000
1 SE0VOYAH - NELDING
/
PROBLEM:
APPR0XIMATELY 50 EMPLOYEE CONCERNS REGMDING WELDING ARE APPLICABLE TO SEQUOYAH, THESE INCLUDE IMPROPER OR FALSIFIED INSPECTION, QUESTIONABLE WELDER AND INSPECTOR QUALIFICATIONS,~ IMPROPER WELD R0D CONTROL AND FAILURE TO MEET CODE RE0llIREMENTS, LEAD-RESPONSIBILITY:
NRR STAFF ACTIONS:
REVIEWING TVA WELD INSPECTION PLAN; STAFF COMMENTS TO BE PROVIDED TO TVA CONDUCTED'ONSITE INSPECTION, TVA EFFORT APPEARS ADE00 ATE.
PLANNING FOR SEVERAL ADDITIONAL SITE INSPECTIONS TO VERIFY TVA WELD REINSPECTIONS, INCLUDING INDEPENDENT. MEASUREMENTS EFFORT,USING REGION I NDE VAN.(INSPECTIONS TO BE CONDUCTED DURING FEBRUARY 1986),
STAFF SER WILL BE PREPARED TVA ACTIONS REMAINING COMPLETE WELD REINSPECTIONS AND SUBMIT INSPECTION REPORT TO NRC FOR STAFF REVIEW (EXPECT REPORT IN EARLY MARCH)
RESOLVE WELD RELATED EMPLOYEE CONCERNS CORRECT ANY IDENTIFIED WELD DEFICIENCIES AND RESPOND TO STAFF CONCERNS RESOURCE ESTIMATES NRR 18 MANWEEKS REGION I 8 MANWEEKS IE 15 MANWEEKS CONTRACTOR
$200,000 REGION II 31 MANWEEKS
CONCLllSIONS 0
TVA RECEIVING TOP PRIORITY BY NRC STAFF 0
EXTENSIVE INVOLVEMENT BY SENIOR NRC MANAGEMENT TEAM AND GOOD COMMUNICATIONS AT ALL LEVELS BETWEEN STAFF AND TVA 0
STAFF ACTIONS AND RESOURCE NEEDS ESTABLISHED FOR SE000YAH -
RESOLUTION OF-EMPLOYEE CONCERNS EXPECTED TO BE CRITICAL PATH 0
SCOPE OF STAFF ACTIONS AND RESOURCE NEEDS LESS PRECISE FOR WATTS BAR, BROWNS FERRY AND BELLEFONTE O
PROGRAMMATIC REVIEWS FOR SEQUOYAH CONDUCTED IN MAJOR AREAS OF WELDING, EQUIPMENT QUALIFICATION AND EMPLOYEE CONCERNS 0
SIGNIFICANT STAFF EFFORT EXPECTED IN NEXT FEW MONTHS ON SEQUOYAH AND SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAM WILL REDIRECT RESOURCES AS REQUIRED 0
TVA REEVALUATING SCOPE OF THEIR EFFORT AND NO SCHEDULES AVAILABLE
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TRANSMITIAL 'IO:
M h=mt Oantrol Desk, 016 Phillips ADVANCED COPY 'IO: /
/
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papers)
Attached are copies of a Ommission meeting transcript (s) and related meeting document (s). Wey are being fonarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and placement in the Public Doctznent Bocm. No other distribution is requestcxl or regtured. Dcisting DCS identification ntsnbers are listed on the individual doctanents wherever pn.
Meeting
Title:
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TRANSCRIPT 1
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